The present invention relates to a personal defense system for administering an electrical shock to a would-be assailant. Such devices are well known in the art as is exemplified by Creedon U.S. Pat. No. 1,046,985 in an early form, and in Cover U.S. Pat. No. 3,083,463 in a more recent form, the latter patent dealing in some detail with the nature of electrical currents on the human body. Still more recently, Tingley et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,917,268 discloses a particular form of relaxation oscillator in which a spark gap is used to isolate the load from the oscillator circuit per se. These patents, as well as many, many others, disclose various forms of oscillator circuits, particularly adaptable to use in applying various forms of electrical energy to the human body or animals, either for self-protection purposes or for medical treatment purposes. Some of these prior art oscillator circuits, such as Browner U.S. Pat. No. 3,025,858 utilize as a part of the oscillatory circuit the portion of the human body between the electrodes; others, such as Moss et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,180,338 use a separate output circuit to the load electrodes. However, such devices as disclosed in the Browner patent, for example, require that the electrodes be wetted with water before the device is placed in operation which, manifestly, is unacceptable when used in connection with a self-protection system. Other systems are relatively complex and require critical component selection and/or adjustment, are more expensive and do not provide output waveforms of the type disclosed herein for the unique and novel practices of this invention.